Land of the Dead Review
by Faust668 AT aol DOT comJune 25th, 2005
LAND OF THE DEAD (2005)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
Viewed on June 24th, 2005
RATING: Two stars and a half
I must confess that I enjoy zombie movies. 2004's black-humored, scary spoof "Shaun of the Dead" and the remake of "Dawn of the Dead" were among the best the genre had to offer. So maybe George A. Romero, the father of the zombie genre, had been out of the loop for too long to come up with anything comparable or different. Not true. His "Night of the Living Dead"
still scares the bejesus out of me, and his original "Dawn of the Dead" is more
comical than frightening but still delivers an occasional shock or two. "Day of the Dead" left me wanting yet Romero's latest, "Land of the Dead," an occasionally effective horror picture, is a marked improvement but no great success. It has Romero's personal stamp written all over it and the occasional
satiric touches but its meaty themes need more, um, seasoning.
The movie begins with close-ups of zombies walking around an abandoned gas station (a prominent sign reads "Eats"). Our heroes, who are human, notice that the zombies are playing musical instruments, trying to fill up a gas tank,
and so much more. Maybe these zombies are learning to adapt to their state of mind. Certainly Big Daddy is, a tall zombie with more brain cells than anyone else in the entire movie (he's played by Eugene Clark who has more presence than anyone else in the film). He knows how to communicate with others of his ilk, especially when humans are nearby watching them through binoculars. The flesh eaters even start to arm themselves
against their human adversaries using a machine gun, a baseball bat, a meat cleaver, and so on.
There are human mercenaries who work for Kaufman (Dennis Hopper), an egotistical, wealthy man who hires them to keep zombies out (including the lower class starving denizens of the sparsely populated city). Kaufman and the rich live in a tower called Fiddler's Green, a luxurious paradise that seems
out of place in a zombie-ridden city. One of the mercenaries, Cholo (John Leguizamo), wants to move in to this paradise but, hey, there's a long waiting
list! There's also Riley (Simon Baker, from TV's "The Guardian"), the reliable
head of the mercenary group, who wants to go north to Canada and get away from the madness. We also get a hooker named Slack (Asia Argento), who is saved by Riley before being eaten in a ring by two zombies while an audience watches! Yep, Romero seems to be saying once again that humans are no better than zombies.
For zombie fans, Romero delivers plenty of gore and plenty of explosions (I think there are more explosions than scenes of zombies ripping out guts or eating fingers). We get numerous scenes of zombies used as target practice or as buffoons or sport for spectators. We also get the traditional scenes of zombies getting shot in the head. There is also a powerful vehicle called "Dead Reckoning" that is some sort of anti-zombie tank (no different than the one used in the "Dawn" remake yet more stable). There are also ads for Fiddler's Green that promise paradise for all, even if it is exclusively
for the rich. And for fans of Tom Savini, he returns as a biker zombie carrying
a machete.
I appreciate many things in "Land of the Dead" but I suppose that, in this steady diet of flesh eaters at the cinema, I expected so much more. Romero made something strangely eerie and unique with his original "Night of the Living Dead" - he painted a bleak picture of a world of indifference between humans. The last shot of that film always shook me and riveted me - it said more about humanity or inhumanity than any zombie film had the right to. Romero's "Dawn of the Dead" was about consumption of a material lifestyle - once you have all the material possessions at a shopping mall, what the heck is left? "Day of the Dead" began to show that zombies could evolve with the proper help of doctors. I was hoping that "Land of the Dead" would evolve along those lines but it does so fitfully, not wholly. Don't get me wrong:
"Land of the Dead" has some scares and is never boring. There is much here that relates to a post-9/11 world (did Cholo actually use the phrase "jihad?")
and nobody can stage gore like Romero can. I just sense that Romero had more to say and either chose not to or was forced to trim the film to a bare 93 minutes. It's perfectly acceptable fare but you may wish there was more to consume.
For more reviews, check out JERRY AT THE MOVIES at: http://www.geocities.com/faustus_08520/Jerry_at_the_Movies.html
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